


Red, White, and Gold

by neverthelessthesun



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Afghanistan, Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Disabled Character, Enthusiastic Consent, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, Kinda?, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prosthetics, Self-Esteem Issues, Sweet, Tony Feels, Wingfic, but he's managing it and trying to get better, but make of that what you will, personally i consider canon tony disabled bc the arc reactor, so really the whole wing prosthetic is an arc reactor replacement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 20:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16436198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverthelessthesun/pseuds/neverthelessthesun
Summary: Tony doesn't believe in soulmates, no matter how much he wants to.





	Red, White, and Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Indigomountain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indigomountain/gifts).



> Hi, and thanks for clicking!
> 
> The first bit of this work was originally written as part of my October Fic Challenge 2018, and indigomountian asked for an expansion on the ficlet I gave. I was inspired. I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine. Enjoy!

Tony didn’t believe what the superstitious people said about your wings linking you to some sort of metaphysical ‘soulmate’. There wasn’t any science, any logic behind their arguments. At the end of the day, Tony was a scientist. He didn’t believe in magic.

Still, he sometimes wondered if the person who shared his pattern would ever come forward to meet him. It was hard to tell, anymore, with half his wings gone, but once they had been a glorious dark red, his undersides a burnished gold, and his flight primaries tipped in shocking white. He wishes he could see his wings again, just once. Even if the person attached to them wasn’t meant to be with him, like the old wives’ tale said.

Now, his wings were tattered and broken. He’d woken up in Afghanistan, pinioned and dirty, his long primaries cut, snapped in some places. He would never fly without the armor again. Even today, he kept the lower half of his wings covered by the advanced prosthetic he invented. His ugly, white primaries never saw the light of day.

When he met Steve Rogers, Tony eyed his red, white, and blue wings suspiciously. Their pattern was similar—Tony’s red was maybe a little darker, but it fell in the same places on their wings, down to the white tips. The major difference was Rogers’ deep blue down, covering the underside of his wings. It was so pure and solid, Tony loathed to compare his now patchy gold. He shook his head.

.o0o.

Later, after the fight was done and the aliens had destroyed half of New York, Rogers cornered Tony in a SHIELD conference room post-debrief.

“Your wings,” he started.

Tony sighed. He knew exactly where this was going. “I fly with the armor, with technology I created. My company hopes to release a commercial model of the flight tech next year. No weapons, of course. You can Google what happened to me—has someone shown you how to Google? Good. And no, I don’t like to show people my wings without the prosthetics.”

Steve seemed taken aback for a moment. “Do folks really ask you all that invasive stuff? I was just going to say, your wings look a lot like mine used to.”

“Before the serum?” Tony asked curiously.

“I mean, yes. But they would probably look like that now if I stopped dyeing them.”

“You dye your wings?!”

Dyeing wings was still pretty taboo, even in the 21st century. That someone like Captain America would dye them was unthinkable.

“Sure,” Steve shrugged, like it was no big deal. “You think my down looks this color naturally? No, I started dyeing it when I went on tour, back with the USO. It made the most sense for Cap to have red white and blue wings, not red, white and gold.”

“Red, white, and…”

“Still, it’s nice to see that gold again. You think SHIELD would let me stop dyeing?” Steve chuckled sardonically. “If you had white tips, we’d be pattern matches. ” With that, he walked away, shooting a kind grin over his shoulder.

Tony stood staring after him for long moments, wondering if he wanted to believe in soulmates after all.

.o0o.

“What do I do, JARVIS?”

Tony was pacing a hole in the workshop floor, trying his level best not to pluck all his down out. Dummy was trailing after him, picking up the glittering tufts of feathers as they fell when Tony didn’t manage to stop himself. It was embarrassing that he was letting something so trivial affect him so intensely, but it felt, it felt…

No. Tony didn’t believe in soulmates. 

JARVIS, apparently sensing the rhetorical question, stayed silent. Tony huffed, even though he knew he wouldn’t have reacted well to a serious response just then. 

“Call Pepper. Wait! No.” Tony fidgeted, plucked at the underside of his left wing. “Call Rhodey?”

“Sir. it is 3 am in Texas, where Colonel Rhodes is stationed. It is 5 am here. Perhaps—“

“You know I won’t be able to sleep, J.”

“As you say, Sir.”

Tony turned and paced again, desperately trying to still his nervous plucking. He just kept turning Steve’s words over and over in his mind. 

_“I started dyeing… It made the most sense for Cap to have red, white, and blue wings, not red, white, and gold.”_

_Red, white, and gold._

Tony cursed himself for not speaking up in that moment. _Actually, Cap, my real primaries are white. We’re pattern matches._

But in the next moment, Tony scoffed. How could the rest of that conversation possibly go? _No, I don’t really want to show you my broken, hideous wings. I don’t want to give you nightmares. No, I didn’t copy my original wing pattern onto my prosthetics, it was an aesthetic choice. Not that I think your wings are ugly, I just think mine are. Wait, no, wait-!_

There was no way to win this.

.o0o.

Ultimately, Tony decided to do nothing about the wing pattern thing. It wasn’t like it mattered, right? Soulmates weren’t real. 

He _did_ bully Fury with his entire legal team until he caved and allowed Steve the choice to go about his Captain America business with his wings un-dyed. Steve, gratefully, accepted the offer, and revealed his true wings immediately. The press had a miniature heart attack, of course, but eventually the new normal was to see Captain America, dressed in his white-and-blue field suit, with red, white, and burnished gold wings. 

This wouldn’t have been a big deal if Tony didn’t notice every time Steve so much as twitched his wings how they shimmered so evenly in the light. His own spotty gold belied years of off-again on-again plucking from stress. He felt ruined and damaged, and Steve was always around to show him, in excruciating detail, exactly where he failed. 

Tony withdrew more often as the weeks passed, to the point that he would miss mandatory Avengers meetings and debriefs just so he wouldn’t have to pretend not to stare longingly at Steve whenever they were both in a room together. The others clearly noticed, but blessedly said nothing. 

Finally, after a month of this, Steve came down and knocked on Tony’s workshop door, coffee and lunch in hand. 

Tony sighed. “Let him in, J.”

Steve smiled sunnily and set the coffee mug and plate down on a side table, away from Tony’s work space. His wings folded sleekly against his back, unlike Tony’s prosthetics, which didn’t fold as nicely when he wasn’t flying. 

“you’ve been avoiding me,” Steve interrupted his self-pitying train of thought. “Did I do something?”

“Nah, Cap, it’s nothing. I’ve been busy, armor upgrades…”

“It’s more than that,” Steve disagreed. “You’re tense. You haven’t preened properly in weeks. What’s up?”

Tony cursed his nervous habits. “I, ah, just have a lot going on. I promise, nothing to worry about.”

“Is it about my wings?”

Tony stared at him. How come Steve could always pinpoint the truth, even through Tony’s best bullshit?

“So it _is_ about my wings,” he deduced from Tony’s silence.

“No, Steve—“ Tony cut himself off. “It’s about _my_ wings.”

Steve glanced at the prosthetics, then quickly back to Tony’s face. “They look normal to me. Did you get hurt?”

“No,” Tony said slowly, drawing it out. “I just. Um. Your wings remind me of my wings? Before.”

Steve didn’t have to ask before what. Fury had briefed all the Avengers on Afghanistan. “You plucked, in the cave.”

“I still pluck, depending on what state of mind I’m in. Once I start, it’s hard to stop.”

Steve winced to hear Tony explain it so cavalierly, but powered though. “You stopped recently, though. You stopped yourself. So you’re…are you doing better?”

Tony breathed in and out slowly. _I will not panic just because Captain America notices things_ , he told himself. _That’s his damn job._

“Yes, I suppose I am. Doing better,” he replied haltingly. 

“I’m glad.”

“Huh?”

Steve’s wings rubbed together, a nervous tic that he had. “I’m glad you’re doing better. I just, I worry about you, Tony. You work so hard, between the team and SI. You deserve to feel better about the things you’ve overcome. Are overcoming. I, ah, sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“Thanks,” Tony cut him off. “It means a lot.”

Steve gave another shy smile. Tony found himself smiling back, opening his mouth almost of his own accord. He knew it was stupid, he knew, but—

“Before, I had white tips, too,” he confessed softly. “I miss them.”

Steve gaped at him. “You—you did?”

Tony coughed. “Yeah, I mean. They weren’t nearly as good-looking as yours. And now they’re—I wouldn’t inflict the sight of them on you, really. I’m not implying we were—are—pattern matches, or, or _soulmates_ , I don’t even—“

“Tony.”

Steve was breathless in awe, striding closer, into his space, his wings drawing up to mantle a little. He raised his hands and hovered over Tony’s shoulders, staring at him wondrously. “Tony, we’re pattern matches?”

“Uhm,” Tony managed eloquently. “You don’t have to—hey, Steve, I won’t tell—“

“I’ve never been so happy,” Steve murmured. “I’ve been thinking about you, ever since the invasion. God, Tony, I am so gone on you.”

“You are?”

“Course.” Steve grinned, letting his hands skate down Tony’s arms softly, then threading their hands together. “I mean, you’re amazing. Crazy intelligent, snarky, takes-no-shit. You’re my type. Never mind that you’re gorgeous.”

Tony chose to ignore the compliments, because they did not compute. “But. Steve, I don’t really, ah. Believe in the soulmates thing?”

Steve’s grin didn’t falter. “That’s okay.”

“That’s okay,” Tony repeated, nonplussed.

“I still want to take you out, if you want. Go steady. Soulmate or not, I’m really into you.”

“You’re into me.”

“Natasha has been teasing me about it for weeks.”

“Natasha knows?”

Steve ducked his head sheepishly. “I think everyone knows. I’m not exactly good at subtle.”

Tony swallowed, processing this. 

“Can I kiss you?”

Tony stared blankly at Steve, then at Steve’s lips. “Of course? Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

“It’s just, you haven’t really said yes yet.”

Tony shook himself. “Yes, Jesus. Please kiss me.”

Steve smiled again, his eyes bright. Then he leaned in slow, as if to give Tony a chance to change his mind. Finally, dry lips pressed against Tony’s, and he felt his eyes fluttering shut. 

Steve kept the first kiss chaste and warm, pressing softly for only a second or two, then pulling away only an inch. He met Tony’s eyes, searching.

Tony didn’t wait for him to find what he was looking for before grasping his shirt and pulling him back in, clashing their mouths together firmly and slipping some tongue against Steve’s bottom lip. He obligingly opened his lips, and Tony tasted him. It was the best thing he ever tasted. 

Moments or eons later, Steve gently pulled away again. “Tony,” he shuddered, clearly more affected than Tony thought. 

“Steve,” Tony whispered back. He realized his own wings were up, mantling as best they could under the prosthetics. He would have blushed and dropped them, but when they caught Steve’s eye, he gave a blinding smile. 

_Maybe we can do this_ , Tony thought. _Maybe we can be alright_. 

.o0o.

(Spoiler alert: they were.)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments inspired this fic, maybe more comments will inspire more fic!
> 
> I got back on [Tumblr](https://nvrthlessthsun.tumblr.com/) because I have no impulse control so follow me or w/e.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [blind hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719199) by [Reshma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reshma/pseuds/Reshma), [UniversalPie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniversalPie/pseuds/UniversalPie)




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